A new exhibition at the White Cube at Mason's Yard introduces experimental work from across the 50-year career of one of Eastern Europe’s most prominent artists.
Since the 1960s, Hungarian artist Dóra Maurer has been producing original and precise conceptual art in an impressive range of mediums – print, drawing, painting and sculpture, performance and film.
At first her work seems to be defined by its boldly graphic aesthetic, starkly yet elegantly minimalist. However, if you linger in this show you will begin to realise that this aesthetic – the appearance of her art – is almost completely unintentional. It’s a byproduct of the various scientific systems and processes Maurer has created, and from where all her art stems.
Now approaching 79, Maurer was born into the Hungarian Soviet Republic, the first communist state set up after Soviet Russia. She had the unusual freedom to roam between communist Eastern Europe and the West since 1967 because her husband, the Hungarian artist Tibor Gáyor, had Austrian citizenship.
'It is only [a state of] order that you can break free from,' she says, explaining her obsessively methodical way of working. Maurer has described order as one of the few 'fundamental laws that affect the entirety of a human being'. Her work celebrates the innate geometry and mechanics in all working aspects of life, particularly human form and action – and always with a view to finding its counter-motion, be it chaos or absurdity.
In her 1979 film Properties she is partly seen performing a precise series of measurements on a roll of paper, using only her body. She creates a new metric system, exactly one quarter the length of herself. She then demonstrates that this is the perfect system for measuring all possible lengths of her own body – feet and hands, shoulders and shins – as if her whole body derives from one sizing system. Watching her rolling awkwardly around on the floor, her method seems random and absurd at first, but gradually we begin to see the logic of it, to marvel at the mathematical perfection that every chaotic, organic motion derives from.
This little show is an understated gem. It reveals an extraordinarily comprehensive artistic career that became, essentially, an experiment – a search for the precise right angle where the lines of order and chaos, logic and absurdity, intersect.
Maurer's oeuvre factors an impressive range of mediums – print, drawing, painting and sculpture, performance and film. Pictured: Hidden Structures 1–6, 1977
Now approaching 79, Maurer was born into the Hungarian Soviet Republic, the first communist state set up after Soviet Russia. Pictured: Ixek 6, 2011
Maurer had unusual freedom to roam between communist Eastern Europe and the West since 1967 because her husband, the Hungarian artist Tibor Gáyor, had Austrian citizenship. Pictured: Overlappings 1, 1999
'It is only [a state of] order that you can break free from,' she says, explaining her obsessively methodical way of working. Pictured: Quod Libet 39, 1999
This little show is an understated gem, revealing an extraordinarily comprehensive artistic career that became, essentially, an experiment. Pictured: Reversible And Changeable Phases Of Movements 6, 1972
INFORMATION
’Dóra Maurer: 6 out of 5’ is on view until 9 July. For more information, visit the White Cube website
Photography: Todd-White Art Photography. Courtesy the artist and White Cube
ADDRESS
White Cube
25–26 Mason's Yard
London, SW1Y 6BU
-
A 432 Park Avenue apartment is an art-filled family home among the cloudsAt 432 Park Avenue, inside and outside compete for starring roles; welcome to a skyscraping, art-filled apartment in Midtown Manhattan
-
Kitchen Trends 2026: luminosity, colour, and unexpected materialityThese are kitchen trends shaping interior design in 2026, from collaborative kitchens to warm luminosity
-
A gallery in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales showcases work inspired by natureThorns Gallery opens in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, with founders Jonathan Reed and Graeme Black aiming to showcase artworks inspired by the natural world
-
White Cube at Arley Hall: contemporary sculpture meets the English country house gardenWhite Cube’s first outdoor sculpture exhibition puts the work of 12 modern and contemporary artists, including Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley and Danh Vo, on view in the grounds of Cheshire’s Arley Hall
-
Wang Gongxin at White Cube: hidden cameras, eerie minimalism and grey matterWang Gongxin’s show at White Cube Mason’s Yard explores cultural polarities and in-between states through 13 captivating new multimedia works
-
Theaster Gates: London, urban reform and exemplars of Black excellenceThe American artist and urban planner returns to London for a cultural takeover on a grand scale, and – as one of five visionaries invited to nominate creative leaders of the future for ‘5x5’, Wallpaper’s 25th anniversary project – picks five exemplars of Black excellence leading the way for social and creative change
-
Architectural futurism and urban ‘nudity’: Liu Wei at White CubeWhat is urban space without bodies? Chinese artist Liu Wei describes his eerie exploration of deserted cityscapes at White Cube Bermondsey
-
Cerith Wyn Evans puts the concept of mechanism through its paces in White Cube showThe Welsh artist’s latest exhibition is a captivating continuation of his exploration of transcendence, translation and temporality
-
Jeff Wall’s monumental photographs loom large at White CubeRenowned for his meticulously composed tableaux, the Canadian artist strikes out in a new direction at the London gallery
-
Sarah Morris cuts through the noise at White CubeIt’s a homecoming of sorts for the Kent-born, New York-based artist, who debuts new paintings and her first ever sculptural work at the gallery’s Bermondsey space
-
Tracey Emin lays bare her own traumas in piercing new showThe British artist is as deeply personal as ever in her first London exhibition in five years, reflecting on loss, mourning, insomnia and spiritual love at White Cube Bermondsey
